More Oxburgh Misrepresentations

Almost none of Oxburgh’s testimony to the Science and technology Committee can be taken at face value. Even on something as simple as climate background of Lisa Graumlich and Kerry Emanuel, Oxburgh’s statements to the committee were untrue.

Here is an approximate transcript of Oxburgh’s description of the makeup of the panel to the committee:

We put together the panel – in consultation with various people – of people who were outside the field. This was quite important. It’s quite a small field. If you look at publications of CRU, they’d collaborated with almost everyone in every department around the world. It was quite difficult. We wanted people who had no formal position or as little as possible on any of these questions, but who understood the methods and techniques that were relevant to what was going on. Ultimately the choice of panel members was mine, but I talked directly and indirectly to a number of people. We ended up with 3 people who had absolutely no connection to climate work or meteorology – 4 including me. And 3 people a bit closer – Lisa Graumlich who was a tree ring person but who had not used tree rings in the same way as the CRU used. The traditional use of tree rings was to set up chronologies for archaeological applications. What the CRU did was to tried to interpret characteristics in terms of climate – a different and quite difficult step. The other 2 people, who had professional knowledge in an adjacent area, were Huw Davies and Kerry Emanuel; both of whom were meteorological people, which is different from climate, but they understand the long words. That was how it was put together. It was ultimately my decision.

Oxburgh’s statement that Lisa Graumlich hadn’t used tree rings “in the same way as the CRU used” i.e. in this context, for the interpretation of climate as opposed to archaeological applications, is flatly untrue.

Graumlich has written dozens of articles using proxy evidence to reconstruct past temperature. Her present webpage profile says as much:

Dr. Lisa J. Graumlich is currently Director of the School of Natural Resources and the Environment at The University of Arizona, where she integrates her career-long interest in global climate change with the emerging issue of how to best manage natural resources in an uncertain future. As a researcher, she investigates how ecosystems and human societies adapt to climate change, with a special focus on severe and persistent droughts.

Her 1000-year foxtail chronologies (Boreal, Upperwright) – which include strip bark samples – have been used in a number of multiproxy studies, including Esper et al 2002, Osborn and Briffa 2006, Juckes et al 2007, among others.

On May 6, 2010, within a few weeks of the Oxburgh report, she testified at the House Committee on Global Warming (see here, here – full testimony here ) where she reported that proxy records showed that the 20th century was the ‘warmest”.

Climate records indicate the later part of the 20th century was the warmest period in the past 500 to 1,000 years, Lisa Graumlich told lawmakers May 6…

Graumlich testified that the combination of climate records used in estimating Northern Hemisphere temperature trends – such as lake sediments, ice cores, coral growth bands and historical documents – obtained by independent research groups, has led to a clear indication that the later 20th century is the warmest period in the past 500 to 1,000 years.

In her House testimony, she is described as a member of the Oxburgh panel (submitting the complete Oxburgh report as an attachment) and testified on conclusions of the Oxburgh report.

Oxburgh said that Kerry Emanuel’s expertise lay in the adjacent area of “meteorology” (though he understood the “long words”), but to say or imply that Emanuel was “outside the [climate] field” or had not taken a position on climate issues is obviously untrue. Emanuel has taken a strong and very public position on climate change. And while Emanuel had not collaborated with CRU itself, he had, of course, collaborated with their closest Climategate correspondent, Michael Mann.

Emanuel had even taken a strong public postition – see MIT debate here commencing at minute 8 – in which he defended the Climategate email as showing the “scientists hard at work” – taking lines right from Gavin Schmidt at realclimate. He blamed the controversy on a “public relations machine”, spending lots of time on the tobacco industry ( a motif also used by Oxburgh in his testimony.) He called Climategate a “victory for the machine” and later a “windfall for the machine”.

Compare this to Philip Campbell and the Muir Russell inquiry. Muir Russell, like Oxburgh, had stated that the panelists had “no prejudicial interest in climate change or in climate science”. Philip Campbell had quite properly recused himself from the panel, because of his previous comments to Chinese State Radio (far less prejudicial than Emanuel’s) in which he said:

It’s true that it comes at a bad time but it is not true that it is a scandal. The scientists have not hidden the data. If you look at the emails there is one or two bits of language that are jargon used between professionals that suggest something to outsiders that is wrong. In fact the only problem there has been is some official restriction on their ability to disseminate their data. Otherwise they have behaved as researchers should.

Campbell explained his resignation as follows:

“I made the remarks in good faith on the basis of media reports of the leaks. As I have made clear subsequently, I support the need to for a full review of the facts behind the leaked e-mails. There must be nothing that calls into question the ability of the independent Review to complete this task, and therefore I have decided to withdraw from the team.”

Compare Campbell’s mild remarks to Emanuel’s MIT statement:

“What we have here,” says Kerry Emanuel, are “thousands of emails collectively showing scientists hard at work, trying to figure out the meaning of evidence that confronts them. Among a few messages, there are a few lines showing the human failings of a few scientists…” Emanuel believes that “scientifically, it means nothing,” because the controversy doesn’t challenge the overwhelming evidence supporting anthropogenic warming. He is far more concerned with the well-funded “public relations campaign” to drown out or distort the message of climate science, which he links to “interests where billions, even trillions are at stake…” This “machine … has been highly successful in branding climate scientists as a bunch of sandal-wearing, fruit-juice drinking leftist radicals engaged in a massive conspiracy to return us to agrarian society…”

I happen to disagree with Emanuel’s remarks – I urge climate scientists to spend more time examining whether they can do their job better and less time blaming “machines”. If they actually looked into the mirror, maybe they’d realize that some self-appointed messengers to the public and that their public face e.g. realclimate, might be counterproductive.

But that’s a different point than the one here – Oxburgh’s untrue statements to the Committee about Graumlich and Emanuel. It’s hard to believe that Oxburgh was so ignorant that he really thought that Graumlich did archaeological chronologies and Emanuel did meteorology. But that’s what he told the Committee.

51 Comments

I’ve seen Emanuel on various documentary programs on The History Channel, Discovery, and others over the last few years reinforcing the AGW line. Oxburgh is either very stupid, or thinks everyone else is very stupid.

“Oxburgh is either very stupid, or thinks everyone else is very stupid.”

There sure seems like a lot of that going around lately. Perhaps the problem is that those people who generally support the policy preferences of the dominant news media (i.e. the establishment) do not get grilled. They get accustomed to kid glove treatment and apparently assume that they can always get away with a little fudging here and there. Cross-examination is for those whose views are not ‘approved’.

When someone finally examines their words and actions closely, and points out the glaring inconsistencies, they can look very much like someone who is not ready to be a prime time player. It must come as quite a shock to one unfamiliar with scrutiny. The glare of the exposure by “outsiders” enabled by the internet must seem horribly intrusive to one whose always known the cozy confines of a cocoon protected by friendly media gatekeepers.

If Oxburgh feels exposed, he is simply part of a quickly growing group of politicians, climate scientists, government bureaucrats, UN officials, et al to learn the lesson. [Accountability can be a b*@#$!] 😉

Oxburgh knows full well he has muddied his replies to the questions asked by the committee and he couldn’t care a stuff he has played a blinder again and someone will no doubt be buying him drinks at the HoL’s again. What are you/we going to do about it, what can we do about it…….nothing. His muddied replies will live forever and he will go on living his life making “loads of money” like a used car salesman. He knows we are powerless to bring him to account but he also knows we not stupid.

It doesn’t really matter whether the mistake was intentional or not. The real problem was Muir Russell’s blindness to the subject lines of the emails – whether 08-31 was listed in the UEA list was immaterial to the Muir Russell blindness.

Also, given the prominence of the issue and the unfailing courteousness of FOI Officer Palmer, my personal view is that the omission was, as Palmer says, inadvertent. It would make no sense for him to do something like that. I see no reason for readers to speculate otherwise and ask that you do not do so.

My point was not that the omission should make it impossible for the university to take any satisfaction in such a flawed finding, rather than ‘welcoming” it.

I understand the very specific point you make WRT the UEA’s undue self-satisfaction. I don’t have any opinion on whether it was deliberate or inadvertent in the first place.

My response was more of a general reaction to @martyn’s apparent despair over the course of events. I think that’s an overly pessimistic view. And an accurate representation of events is a requirement if you find yourself in a position to ask someone suitably placed to escalate a specific issue.

Emanuel only recently turned up in a documentary, apparently concerned about the public’s blurring of meteorologists and climate scientists, the former which he viewed as unable to comment on climate matters. He obviously was trying to point out that he himself fell into the latter category.

PROFESSOR KERRY EMANUEL, CLIMATE SCIENTIST: “Why would anybody ask weather forecasters about their opinion on climate? I think it is because there is a hope that I don’t think is justified that ordinary people will confuse weather forecasters with climate scientists.”

Please do not turn this into a discussion of Emanuel’s assertions – he’s entitled to argue his case. What is at issue here is his appointment to Oxburgh’s panel and, in particular, Oxburgh’s testimony to the Committee. In a recent article, Emanuel criticized testimony by opponents to a US committee, observing that lying to US congressional committee was a crime.

When necessary to cover up the cover up – and after the deeds are done (like Martyn says at 6:31pm – “what can you do about it!! Nothing”), like Alberto Gonzales in front of a Senate committee a few years ago, you just play REALLY confused. Better to look confused than to be caught doing the nasty to the truth. The confusion is all contrived. Don’t believe that for a second.

If this is really about regaining the public trust, then it’s going to be a fairly uphill battle when the people primarily assigned to the task consistently come across as confused 😉 – and whether it’s a case of being confused, uninformed or untruthful about the details, or something else, the result for the public is the same – mistrust. For me it’s not about whether the public can do anything about it or not, it’s whether these efforts are satisfying the public… and the only thing that’s going to settle the public is when people who aren’t confused, uninformed or untruthful on the details can be allowed to say what they need to say on these matters, and are listened to. That doesn’t seem to have happened yet, but I’m sure it’s all just going to keep on rolling on until it does. What can they do about that?

I authored the blog listing you linked to from Anthony Watt’s site, but I did not offer my personal opinion there about Emanuel’s motivations, since I still have no clue what his are. Nevertheless, Emanuel is not naively wading ankle deep into this morass. He knows exactly what he’s doing and saying.

Both Cicerone and Hoskins talked to Emanuel, “warming” him up. On March 8, Hoskins reported to Davies that “[Emanuel]He also mentioned his only ‘blemish’ on the climate change issue as being his involvement with the climate change and hurricanes issue that I[Hoskins] raised with you before.”

I find that statement factual. Emanuel’s collaboration (in the literature) with Mann was limited to statistical tinkering with the Atlantic hurricane best track data and some paleotempestology. Am I missing some other research they did together?

Steve – not to my knowledge. Emanuel’s position has been quite public. My issue is not with Emanuel’s disclosure of his position, but with Oxburgh’s characterization of Emanuel (and Graunlich) ‘s professional interests as not being closely linked to climate.

[Emanuel] blamed the controversy on a “public relations machine” … He called Climategate a “victory for the machine” and later a “windfall for the machine”.
… I urge climate scientists to spend more time examining whether they can do their job better and less time blaming “machines”.

That reminds me of Michael Wesch:

You’ve deeply misunderstood the nature of the machine, chaps. It’s us. It ain’t big oil, it ain’t filthy coal, it’s common-a-garden us. You’ve got to learn to include us, as the video shows. And make a better fist of it than Wikipedia has. We look forward to it.

Oxburgh’s statement that Lisa Graumlich hadn’t used tree rings for the interpretation of climate is flatly untrue. Graumlich has written dozens of articles using proxy evidence to reconstruct past temperature.

Her online vita at http://www.snr.arizona.edu/files/graumlich%20CV%20jan%2010.pdf shows that she has co-authored several such articles. However, it is possible that she merely provided the tree rings, and the other co-authors added the interpretation in terms of past climate, so that she herself has not done any such interpretation.

Steve; well, she’s coauthored a lot of such articles. Lloyd and Graunlich 1997 – for example – Andrea Lloyd was her student and I don’t think that one could reasonably separate the expertise of one with the other. Also why would she be testifying to congress on climate if she was just doing archaeological applications. Has she ever done an archaeological article.

“Almost none of Oxburgh’s testimony to the Science and technology Committee can be taken at face value. Even on something as simple as climate background of Lisa Graumlich and Kerry Emanuel, Oxburgh’s statements to the committee were untrue.”

Now, boys and girls, we see in this series of Climate Audit posts how the testimony of Oxburgh is being taken apart, and clinically. We once heard Howie Long say of Dan Marino, “In the fourth quarter of a game, Dan Marino is someone who can reach down your throat and rip out your heart.” (Editor’s Note: Ouch!) Well, boys and girls, if you have been observing, you have noticed that Steve McIntyre is someone who can reach into your mouth and, with a few deft movements, cut out your entire brain. Actually, it’s relatively painless, and the recipients of this procedure have always been able to continue working at the same level of competence as they did before the procedure. Oxburgh is but the latest. (Editor’s Note: In the case of any unforeseen deleterious effects from this procedure, a trust fund is being established to aid the families of the procedure recipients. Google ponzischemesrus.com for more information.)

Surely the most apt Monty Python sketches are the ones making specific snotty references to the University of East Anglia – a reputation that the university had strived to live down, but which Acton, Oxburgh, Muir Russell and their merrie band are doing their best to revive.

UEA has done a wonderful job of immortalizing its reputation, with help from Lord Ox. I wonder if UEA provides a joint degree in climate science and idiocy?
If one must be an idiot, imagine the prestiege associated with receiving a degree from an institution so eminent in the field as UEA.

I think its more a case of an old guard of science not understanding that thier precious ‘science’ is actually open to the world and is questioned. The shock this has caused has resulted in the behaviour above……..

I greatly admire your work, but I would like to offer a note of caution. The libel laws in the UK are different than here (Canada). Here, truth is a defense. There, not so much. I suspect that the greatest thing protecting you from a libel suit at this time is the desire of those who would attack you to avoid a QB VII type victory. I urge you to remain utterly scrupulous and remain consistently meticulous. And cautious.

As I understand it, in the UK, you need to prove that what you said is true, rather than in Canada where you need to show a deliberate falsehood. I could be wrong in this, but I believe the potential for this is much greater in the UK than Canada. It is why the US is implementing shield legislation to protect US citizen’s 1st amendment rights, particularly against libel lawsuits in the UK. The reference in my first post is to a book by Leon Uris which details how a party can loose a lawsuit for libel, even though they were shown to have been telling the truth. The book was based on an actual lawsuit that Uris lost, even though the events he detailed were accurate. The reason a plaintiff would wish to avoid a “QB VII Victory” is that Uris was ordered to pay one half penny in damages while his opponent was required to pay Uris’ legal fees. Nonetheless, technically, Uris lost the case.

The good Lord Oxymoron’s professional report was always only about the integrity of the scientists and that’s why he did not read the emails. On the other hand his presentation to Parliament was all about the science?

Understandably he wishes when the next two commitee meet to discuss FOI.
Cough Cough

Anyway the good Lord had a problem remembering the planets so I thought this might help:-
Most Venal Expressions Makes Junk Scientists Utter Nonsensical Poppycock.

“Almost none of Oxburgh’s testimony to the Science and technology Committee can be taken at face value. Even on something as simple as climate background of Lisa Graumlich and Kerry Emanuel, Oxburgh’s statements to the committee were untrue.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

A formal note on the matter, from you, Steve, to Secretary of State Huhne might be of value. Your analysis, as always, is accurate and detailed and should, at least, encourage a written response.

“Oxburgh’s statement that Lisa Graumlich hadn’t used tree rings for the interpretation of climate is flatly untrue.”

According to the above transcript, Oxburgh said: “Lisa Graumlich…had not used tree rings in the same way as the CRU used.”

The statement, “…had not used tree rings in the same way as the CRU used” does not mean the same as, “…hadn’t used tree rings for the interpretation of climate…”

As for the other panel members, Oxburgh says the field is very small, and, “We wanted people who had no formal position or as little as possible on any of these questions, but who understood the methods and techniques that were relevant to what was going on.”

Given these caveats, I think it’s a stretch to accuse Oxburgh of stating untruths. At best, you can criticise his judgement as to the suitablity of these people.

Steve: you’re making a distinction without a difference. Oxburgh said that Graumlich did “traditional” dendro i.e. for archaeological applications, while CRU did something “different” – interpreted tree rings for climate. However, to be perfectly clear, I rephrased the sentence as follows:

Oxburgh’s statement that Lisa Graumlich hadn’t used tree rings “in the same way as the CRU used” i.e. in this context, for the interpretation of climate as opposed to archaeological applications, is flatly untrue.

Like CRU, Graumlich used tree rings for climate interpretations. Oxburgh misrepresented the situation to the Committee.

“Steve: you’re making a distinction without a difference. Oxburgh said that Graumlich did “traditional” dendro i.e. for archaeological applications, while CRU did something “different” – interpreted tree rings for climate.”

I’m simply comparing the statements in the post above. Oxburgh said that Graumlich had not used tree rings “in the same way” as CRU used them.

That might refer to use in another discipline. It might also refer to different methods within the same discipline.

As for context, Oxburgh’s comment about the traditional use of tree rings in archaeology could well be the context for the sentence that immediately follows: “What the CRU did was to tried to interpret characteristics in terms of climate…”

That is, Oxburgh is contrasting the traditional use of tree-ring chronology with its use in climate research.

Presumably, Oxburgh was familiar with Graumlich’s CV, which would make my interpretation more plausible.

UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE
To be published as HC 444-i
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE
Reviews into the Climatic Research Unit’s E-mails at the university of East Anglia
Wednesday 8 September 2010
Lord Oxburgh
Evidence heard in Public Questions 1-50
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